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I could see Cal and Stanford sneaking into the B1G with certain strings attached. If they both opt to take a much lower payout than even Oregon and Washington for a good while, so maybe something like 20 mil instead of the Oregon and Washington 30mil. They would need to come in at a major pay cut while also saying they would take football more seriously. Right now is their opportunity to invest as much as they can into football and in the next season or two show some meaningful improvements. In terms of academics they fit in just fine so that could give them a significant boost. I'm also sure that UCLA would help get Cal in because they wouldn't have to pay Cal anymore if that were to happen. I could see Oregon, Washington and USC wanting them in for more west coast games. Strangely enough the B1G might have to turn back to a division system and get more creative towards the end of the season with open scheduling to pin these smaller division against each other... kinda like a mini tournament for the B1G Championship. But this would be asking for far more creativity from a conference than they are probably interested in. I think the whole thing is a long shot at this point but I can see it happening if the right set of circumstances come up.

Nothing to SEC here, move right along. Only 9 out of 16 SEC teams ranked in the AP Poll? How can the voters screw over seven teams from the It Just Means More conference? To me, this sure looks like Sankey Pankey AP voting. 🤪

Every school that has retained its coach, Fickell at Wisconsin, Locksley at Maryland, or hired a new coach has promised to spend more on football. This is a step down for a coach who could have had the job at Arkansas or perhaps at UCLA. The ACC is an implosion waiting to happen. One that has already given into its brand names when it comes to sharing postseason revenue. He will be recruiting the same territory, and maybe he believes he can win a conference title at VT? The AD at Penn State is toasting the exit payout mitigation with a V(odka) T(onic) or some other kind of adult beverage.

Whenever I see VT my first thought is Vermont, probably because I grew up in Connecticut. 🙂

This one's still a headscratcher to me, who is PSU going to find that's an upgrade? Kind of like just quitting a job because you think can find a better one. I think this is a great hire for VT, they would be stuck with the crumbs if they didn't act soon. I'm just laughing, what if Kiffin stays at Ole Miss? There's going to be a big scramble and somebody's going to wind up with a big downgrade.

Great article David, as our running game is really jelling, and once we get all the WRs back.... We relegated Davison to the "power-back" role early on, but the explosion acceleration on cuts when in the secondary has really emerged with him. It could be a big difference in key games to come.

Well, FSU fans lost their patience with Bobby Bowden who never won the 'Natty, but was a big winner.

There is no way they could get a better coach than Franklin, at least among coaches that have head coaching experience. They might have been able to snatch a really good coordinator, but Franklin is a consistent 10 win coach other than basically his first couple years and this year. Tech haven't had that since Beamer...the first Beamer I mean. This is a home run for VATech, if I was a fan there I would immediately be super excited about possibly dominating the ACC if he can recruit at a decent level. I would say the only coach in the ACC that is definitely better than Franklin right now is Key at Georgia Tech. At least until this year Franklin beat the teams he should beat on a consistent basis (I'm looking at you Cristobal and Dabo).

If the ACC truly does fold, I think the Bay Area schools would probably ask the Big-12 first if they could join, in the end I could see Stanford at least shuttering the football program and going independent in other sports, Cal I have no idea what they would do. UCLA will stay in the B1G no matter what, they've been mediocre to poor in Football for a while, but their other sports have flourished, so I would think they would just try to stay afloat in the B1G. USC will just keep throwing money at it, they'll have good years here and there, but that program is always a good coach away from being a power again. They do need to improve their training facilities though. UW will stay at it as well, it's just too much money, and they have too big a fanbase to just pack it in and accept going back to the new Pac-12. I don't blame Beaver and Coug fans trying to keep some glimmer of hope that the old Pac-12 reforms in at least a partial way, it's brutal seeing what those programs have become, not only in football but in other sports as well. While WSU would always lose good coaches to other programs now I'm sure we'll see a revolving door for any coach that is halfway decent..

Part of me is saying VATech could have done better. Tech was once a pretty descent program. To some extent they went the opposite direction as Oregon for the opposite reasons. Oregon was all about innovation and VaTech was all about, well certainly not innovation at least not in football. Right now in the NIL/portal world of college sports they are ill equipped financially to compete at the highest levels. That's too bad. It used to be a game at Lane Stadium was probably second only to Autzen in game atmosphere.

I’m a bit surprised and think Franklin could have done better, if he waited. Franklin at Florida State would have been a great hire. FSU is more talented than the majority of teams they play and their fans would be happy winning 10+ games per year and making the playoffs.

I feel like Franklin might have been able to get a better job. Va Tech haven't been good in a while, and I don't think that program is going to attract talent again. I could be wrong, but I think Franklin should have either gone after another job or waited a bit more. Edit: I guess Tech is making a commitment to spend more on athletics, and I guess Franklin already has a lot of recruiting ties to Virginia and the D.C area, so I guess he feels pretty comfortable in that position. After getting his butt kicked constantly by the best teams in the B1G, he would be going against a lot of the same caliber teams that he feasted on. I guess he sees the opportunity to be the big fish in the small pond.

Ha, from one college mountain town otherwise in the middle of nowhere, to another (even smaller, yay verily tiny) college mountain town in the middle of nowhere. Welcome to Bleaksburg coach! Actually I really like Blacksburg, it's beautiful (not unlike Eugene, just smaller than Eugene) but it is tiny and kind of remote (not to be confused with Remote, OR, just 12 miles east of Myrtle Point).

Been saying it since the Penn St. game, we are a smash-mouth running team that kills teams off the play-action and vertical passing game. The thing that frustrated me most during our one loss was Stein not committing to this when it was working, we started getting cute and kept putting ourselves behind the eight ball. Commit to the run and pass in order keep teams honest. We can certainly have success in the passing game, but our identity is running the ball in a multitude of ways and formations. Best thing that Stein has done this season is the multitude of looks we give the defense. We can go 5 wide, we can go 2-1, 2-2, or 1-3 personnel, and at the same time have success in different ways in these sets. The RBs give different looks, the TEs can go legit 3 deep. The O-line is the best run blocking unit we've had under Lanning. We just need to get healthy at the WR position.

Great read on how weather forced the Ducks to discover their offensive self. While you could also say an offensive identity may change every week depending on the next defense they see, the kind of confidence built against Iowa and Minnesota remains the foundation.

Now we dont have to worry about VT beating any ranked teams.

Damn. You got me there, as I am conscious of proper punctuation...but as an admitted Duck who is "nobility-impaired," you put me in a tough spot. Especially since there are few as petty as I, and I haven't even started my denigration of USC yet this week!

And Kiffin and his family have been at UF and LSU in the last week. The carousel is ramping up!

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/virginia-tech-hires-james-franklin-head-coach/

With healthy receivers this team becomes one of the kinds of teams that is so hard to defend. Some teams set up their passing with their running game. Others set up their running game with their passing game. The Ducks can do it both ways. When a team loads the box against the run, this team can go down field with efficiency (a lot of teams pass down field trying to get lucky, not Oregon), when the D is playing off the line, trying to stop the pass this team can punish them with the run. Being able to do both of those makes this team very hard to defend.

Do they mean UCLA? Because Oregon and USC are doing fine this year and Washington is above average. and UCLA is getting a new coach to try and revamp their program.

Gotta play your schedule. A brief look at the Ducks out of conference schedule, the only part of the schedule we have control over. Montana State - A pretty good FCS team, but an FCS team. But most FBS teams play an FCS team and the result is that the FCS team is going to lose. Oklahoma State - A Power 4 program and usually a pretty good program. They were not good this year and there is nothing the Ducks could have done about that but scheduling them wasn't inherently scheduling a cupcake. Oregon State - Well... a G6 team and most teams schedule a FCS team, a G6 team, and a P4 team. Oregon State became exceptionally bad this season. As for our conference schedule, as which we don't have any control over... we miss two of the worst teams in the conference in UCLA and Purdue which Indiana and Ohio State both got UCLA this season and Indiana gets Purdue yearly. Rutgers and Northwestern are both ok teams and Iowa is better than their record... they after all have three of their four losses to teams ranked ahead of them.

No. 3 Texas A&M 41-40 at Notre Dame 16-10 vs Auburn 45-42 at Arkansas 31-30 vs S. Carolina Will play Texas Not on the schedule: Georgia Ole Miss Alabama Oklahoma Vanderbilt Tennessee

And yet, USC is featured in the lyrics of the college gameday intro. song while Oregon is just one of many teams mentioned as part of the list…

Excellent point. For players from So Cal, they know just about everyone they know will be watching the game and they will want to show out.